Pubdate: Tue, 09 May 2006 Source: Times Union (Albany, NY) http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=479828&category=%20REGION&newsdate=5/9/2006&TextPage=2 Copyright: 2006 Capital Newspapers Division of The Hearst Corporation Contact: http://www.timesunion.com/forms/emaileditor.asp Website: http://www.timesunion.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/452 Author: Fred LeBrun HEAD START ON 2008 FOR SOARES Albany County District Attorney David Soares has announced in an unusual and disquieting way that he's running for a second term. His by-now-famous address last week to the 17th International Conference on the Reduction of Drug-Related Harm in Vancouver, British Columbia, was sharply critical of the U.S. war on drugs, which is heavy on traditional law enforcement and light on alternatives and treatments. Plus, he took it a step further and claimed that judges, lawyers and prosecutors know this policy isn't working but continue to support it "because it provides law enforcement officials with lucrative jobs." Ouch. Predictably, Albany County Sheriff Jim Campbell and Albany Police Chief Jim Tuffey took issue with Soares' characterization. Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings got into the fray as well, taking a verbal punch at the DA that prompted a rebuttal from Soares telling the mayor to keep politics out of the police department. By Monday, the first-term DA had cooled his jets and sought to explain himself. He essentially apologized to local law enforcement if he offended them -- he had. He said he is fervently against the conventional law enforcement wisdom in this country's war on drugs but has only appreciation for the soldiers fighting it. Lucrative was a poor choice of words, he acknowledged. "I'll admit I was pretty surprised at the ire I raised with the Vancouver speech," Soares said late Monday. Particularly because there was nothing in it Albany audiences hadn't heard many times when he was on the stump for then-Albany County DA Paul Clyne's job, he added. At the same time, David Soares admitted that the tempest he's raised was to some degree expected -- and sought. A strategy. The tone was what got officials here upset. "There's been a lot of contention behind the scenes in Albany County with the law enforcement community since I took office. This was one way I could get it all out for the public to see and hear. The only chance for survival I have, considering the political enemies around me, is transparency," he said. And the survival he has in mind, apparently, is another term in office. Because his first-blush reaction to the attacks by Jennings, Tuffey and Campbell was to call their public criticisms a blessing in disguise. "This has brought it into the open two years before 2008 (when he would run again). This has just moved up the time frame. They want me? They'll have to go after me." Ouch again. "Thou shalt not be cocky" is a golden rule of political survival, and David Soares is taking a mighty risk with the aggressive posture he's taken. The public doesn't go for this. While Soares has made himself a lightning rod by choice, before long a fundamental question is bound to rise that has more substance than this little flap. Namely, just how effective a DA's office is David Soares running, no matter what his personal philosophy might be about the state and nation's drug laws? There's already a whispering campaign that the Soares administration has been far less effective with felony cases than Paul Clyne was before him, and that among working cops, the perception is the DA's office is less vigorous in prosecuting drug cases than pre-Soares. David Soares vigorously denies the whispers. So show us the numbers, but you can see where this is going. And he's only been in office 15 months.